A Letter
by Flamingo Bubbles
Summary: A musician; a soldier; a woman; a child. 4 lives torn apart by a brutal war. A letter; the only thing that ties them all together, yet sometimes the smallest things create the strongest bonds. COMPLETE
1. The Musician

**A/N:** This was just a little story I thought up while listening to Godspeed by Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. Me, being me, took the basic story of the song, expounded upon it and ended up with this. To let you know (and if interest warrants it) this story will either have three or four chapters. So please, let me know what you think! And thank you for taking the time to read this.

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><p>The motion of the boat beneath his feet was his only reality in that moment. The gentle rock and sway of the ship was familiar and comfortable; it had become his life over the past weeks, months, years; he didn't remember how long it had been. It felt like years.<p>

The gentle rocking had become a comfort; a comfort that was about to be ripped from under him.

The gun was heavy in his hand. He had been trained to handle it, trained extensively. But despite this fact, the piece of metal always felt awkward and bulky in his hands. In another life, in another time, he had loved to play piano. With the outbreak of war the hands that made music were instantly turned to a much more practical use.

Killing.

There are shouts as the rocking of the boat grows unsteady and choppy. He runs to the side of the ship where several rows of men have already assembled. The silence is grim and heavy; they all know what they're about to face.

All eyes turn to look at the land they are headed towards and all minds return to happier days. The young man thinks of the piano back home he's had since he was a child. It was partially out of tune, but even the slightly discordant tunes he plays over and over in his mind rings with a surreal beauty.

The blaring sound of a trumpet is played and men begin to shout; they are nearing the beach. The music stops; his head is filled with a white blankness.

_ Kill whoever you see._

_ Don't think about it._

_ They're not a person._

_ They're an enemy._

The musician's hands tremble as the soldier's mind tries to steel the young boy for what he's about to face. The out of tune cords return to his head as the other men around him work themselves into a lather of frenzy. He joins in because it's expected of him; when he's in a frenzy he doesn't have to think.

The cords play over and over at the edges of his frenzied haze.

The boat rocks and pitches, bringing to an end the methodical motion of his life. A glorious yell rises into the air as men begin to pour out of the boat and on to the beach. The musician cowers while the soldier drags him along.

_ Kill whoever you see._

_ Don't think about it._

_ They're not a person._

_ They're an enemy._

The cords of a Beethoven ring in his head crowding out all other sounds. There is no gunfire, there are no screams of pain, there are no bodies crashing to the ground; just the angry passionate sounds of piano.

It's his turn to go and the soldier's mind carries him forward. The useless piece of steel is held in his hand and the boots that are a half-size too big carry him through the shallow waters. There is the feeling of metal whirring all around him, but he can't hear it.

The sound of discordant music rings too loudly in his ears.

He sees a boy.

No, not a boy.

A target; an enemy.

The steel is lowered and trained at the boy's heart. The soldier's finger is placed on the trigger just as the notes of the musician's mind reaches a furious crescendo. All fades away as the notes fly in a flurry in his mind and his hand remains poised to pull the trigger.

The boy doesn't move.

He stares with large blue eyes.

He also holds a useless piece of steel.

The soldier pulls the trigger and the musician collapses as the frenzy of angry notes comes to an end. The last notes ring through the air that itself rings with the heavy sound of silence.

The boy crumples to the ground.

The musician and soldier both run towards the boy that never pulled the trigger. The sound of gunshots return, as does the screams of lives lost.

_ A discordant song._

_ The fucking sound of people dying._

The boy with blue eyes lies with his face down in the dirt, his blonde hair matted and dirty. The musician reaches him before the soldier and he slowly rolls him so that he's facing up. Up close, the solider quickly evaluates how young this baby-faced soldier is.

_ …Only about 22 or 23…shit…_

The blue eyes still stare, but the red that spreads from the wound inflicted by the solider quickly works to eat away at those blue eyes.

Then the baby-faced soldier's hands start to move. The soldier feels himself stiffen, but the musician can tell instinctively that this boy is no threat to him. Instead, he watches in rapt fascination as the boy reaches instantly, almost as if he had rehearsed this countless times, for his breast pocket.

A thin slip of white is in his hands and he pushes it towards the musician. The musician takes it eagerly while the soldier stares at it warily. There is writing on the front; a name; an address. He turns over the frail page in his hands to see that the back is sealed with wax.

He realizes it's a letter.

"…Please…"

One word; that's all the baby-faced soldier says. The musician's eyes are drawn away from the letter to look once more at the quickly fading boy. His large blue eyes are pleading, but they still don't speak louder than that one word.

_ "…Please…"_

The musician nods even as the soldier yells at him that it's a trap and he's being stupid. The baby-faced soldier gives a weak smile and moves his lips in an attempt to talk, but no words escape the jaws of death.

The next second, the red eats away at his blue eyes completely and his body goes limp.

The musician stares at the once alive boy in his hands and he feels tears well up in his eyes. Even the soldier is silent for a moment of respect.

He has just killed.

And he continued to kill.

There were so many battles; so many lives lost. Each time the musician pulled the trigger and watched a man fall, the pleading blue eyes of the baby-faced soldier filled his thoughts.

_ "…Please…"_

The musician shut his eyes tight as the soldier continued to pull the trigger.

Then the final shot rang out; the final trigger was pulled.

The sound of shots and smell of gunpowder that had dominated his life for what surely must have been an eternity came to an abrupt end. The soldier was left with fingers that could no longer carry out what they were intended to do and the musician was left with hands stained with red that remained no matter how much he scrubbed at it.

But there was also the square of white the rests in his pocket, right next to his heart.

Even though he can't see the words, the address on the front of the envelope burns into his skin. It burns with a message undelivered; the last words of a baby-faced soldier. His hand unconsciously travels to the breast pocket were the last words of a dead man are kept. As the soldier hides himself away once more, the musician realizes what he must do.

He seeks out the address.

And he stands at the door carrying nothing but final words.

The walk up the steps feel longer than the entire duration of the war and as the musician's footsteps finally come to rest before the looming door, he wishes the soldier would make himself known and deliver the letter.

Hand it to whoever was behind the door uncaringly.

Read the emotions on the person's face uncaringly.

Walk away from the house uncaringly.

But he is not a soldier; he is a musician.

It is because of this fact that his footsteps lead him to this door; it is because of this fact that he lightly raps on the solid oak that separated him from whoever lives in the house. He can feel his heart still in his chest as he hears resulting behind the door and not a moment later the door is flung enthusiastically open.

It's a young woman with long pink hair.

Her face is hopeful at first, joyful; then she recognizes the uniform of the enemy and her face instantly drops. She pulls the door close to her in order to create a barrier between herself and the young man outside her door. Her eyes quickly change from sparkling to haunted. The musician can see her frantically looking his uniform over.

She speaks rapidly in a language the musician doesn't understand as her haunted eyes meet his own. He watches as her eyebrows rise slightly in surprise and he can't help but wonder what she sees. The door is slowly opened once more as she allows the wall to fall.

Then the musician pulls out the letter.

At first she just stares at the object as if it is something she has never seen. He pushes it closer to her hoping that he conveys that it's meant for her. He watches as shaking hands take the simple white envelope. She stares at the object in her hands as if it's the last thing in the world keeping her sane.

She opens the envelope as if she's drowning and it's the only thing that can save her. Her haunted eyes scan the pages, taking in every word. The musician stands and watches because he doesn't know what else he is supposed to do. He had come to deliver his letter; he had done that.

But as he watched the woman pour over the words, he found himself unable to leave.

The eyes of the baby-faced soldier mingle in his mind with the haunted eyes of this woman. For a moment, they are both standing there; the man delivering his message and the woman listening.

The spell is broken when he hears the sound of crinkling paper and chocked sobs.

The woman falls to the ground and the sound of tears seems to ring through the air. Then another sound rends the air, even louder than the sound of the woman's tears.

The sound of small feet padding across the floor.

The musician looks up to find a young boy in the entryway to the house. He couldn't be more than six. The musician can feel the eyes of the young boy burning into him before the boy's eyes turn to his mother.

"Mama."

The sound of feet padding across the floor and quiet sobs combine for a moment in what the musician can only describe as a symphony of shared sorrow. Then the symphony comes to an abrupt end as the young boy reaches his mother and pulls him into a hug. The musician can hear him speaking to his mother and he can catch the consoling tone in the young boy's voice. The words do nothing to calm the woman as she pulls the frail yet strong child into her embrace. She cradles his slim body as tears continue to pour uncontrollably down her face.

The musician feels like an intruder; he does the only thing he can think of.

He turns and walks away.

The cold click of his boots mingles with the sound of the woman's tears and the boy's consoling words. It's the most heart rending song the musician has ever heard.

The next day he returns home.

He clicks on the light in his apartment to find that nothing has been changed. The house is still as small and dingy as ever with a grand piano, his pride, taking up over half of the main room. It is a piano he's had since his childhood and the notes sing slightly out of tune. He has to fix that soon.

As he walks towards the piano, the quiet click of his boots of the cheap linoleum floor greets him. The sounds echo hollowly in dissonance with the silence that dominates the house.

His hands rests on the piano; his hands stained red beyond recognition.

It's then that he cries for the woman with the haunted eyes.

The tears are bitter and hot in his throat, but they quickly dry as he begins to dust off his piano. He hesitates for a moment as his hands linger over the keys.

If he touches them, will he stain them red?

PLINK

His finger touches down on the key and the vibrant warm sound fills the hollow room. The musician stares at the key, but it seems to be unstained. His fingers instinctively move to press another key.

PLINK

A sweet sound unstained by the red on his hands.

He begins to move furiously then; the notes pour out of him almost as if a dam has been removed. The notes form no song the musician has ever played before, but the soldier recognizes them as the sounds of war.

The musician pours over the keys as the sound of the woman's tears dominates his mind. He writes the song for her, for the baby-faced soldier, for the strong little boy.

For the letter that ties them all together.


	2. The Soldier

**A/N:** Sorry for the terrible delay between this chapter and the previous one. Anyways, for those curious, this story will be four chapters long because I've decided that I've thought of enough ideas to extend it into four chapters. That aside, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy!

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><p>He fell in love with her the first time he met her.<p>

It wasn't anything as fantastical as love at first sight. He may have been cursed with what his friends delighted in calling a "baby face", but he had long ago discarded his childish side that believed in fairytales in favor of forcing himself to grow up ahead of his fifteen years.

It was, after all, what everyone expected of him. His mother was always pushing him to be the "proper" son that could care for the family; his sister was always hiding behind him in hopes that he would protect her; his father was always talking about how he had to be the "man" of the house. There wasn't any room left for him to be a child, so he forced himself to grow up. He carefully buried the childish side so deep that no one would ever be able to find it.

At least he liked to believe this to be true.

"Stop pretending to be older than you are. Enjoy the age you are. You have the right to be a child for a little longer; you should take advantage of it."

Those were the first words she said to him.

As ordered by his mother, he had gone to introduce himself to their new neighbor. He was dressed in a clean, pressed suit with his messy hair expertly tamed. His carefully constructed façade was in place as it always was; he had visited new neighbors several times and had perfected the art of first impressions.

When the door opened, he found himself looking at a woman several years older than himself with pink hair that hung down her back. But what caught anyone's attention when they took the time to examine her were her eyes.

They were a startling blue that managed to compel the viewer to look deeper yet carefully kept them at bay. As he stared at those eyes that stared unblinkingly back, he saw something eating away at the edges of those blue eyes.

It wasn't until much later until he would learn what was eating away at both the woman's eyes and heart.

But as he met the woman's eyes for the first time and listened to her words, he instantly threw up every defense he had available to him. How had she seen through him?

How had this woman he had just met broken through his façade of so many years?

He laughed.

There was no way. There was no way this woman had broken through his carefully constructed mask. It had been a lucky guess, nothing more.

She just continued to stare at him with her guarded blues eyes as she waited for his hollow laughter to die down. After what the boy estimated must have been at least a minute of insincere laughter, his laughter died in his chest as he looked once more to the woman.

As he met those eyes, he could tell she was completely serious; she saw everything. She wasn't saying things at random, she wasn't just guessing. She had looked beyond the mask to find the young boy underneath.

As they held each other's gaze, the woman repeated her comment from earlier.

He wanted to laugh again.

But this time, he felt the sting of tears begin to fall unexpectedly down his face.

They were hot and bitter, but he couldn't stop them from sliding down his cheeks and into his mouth.

They tasted like lies.

So he stood there crying silently for years gone by; years during which he lived little more than a lie. The woman didn't move at all, she didn't gently embrace him or give him words of comfort. But what she did gave the young boy with the baby face more comfort than he could ever imagine.

She allowed him to cry.

Just as the hollow laughter had faded away earlier, the honest tears also stopped. But this time the boy felt refreshed. There was one person in the world that he didn't have to wear his mask in front of; this woman that he had just met.

"So that's who you really are. I'm glad to meet you," She said as she held her hand out to him and gave the slightest smile. As the boy took her hand, he looked into those eyes and saw nothing but understanding. There was no judgment, no prejudice, no disappointment in his childish nature.

That was when he fell in love with her.

It was a subtle change. In his childish mind, he had expected love, particularly his first, to be an all-consuming fire; something that dominated both his mind and soul. But what he felt for this woman was more akin to a candle flame rather than a roaring fire.

He felt like it was something of great importance that must be guarded against any force that wished to douse it.

So he was in love with her but he knew the love to be one sided; it had to be one sided.

She was significantly older than him, already putting him at a disadvantage. But it was the fact that she never let anyone in, never let anyone get close, that made it almost impossible to reach her.

Yet despite all this, he never stopped loving her. For five years he visited her at least three times a week. He would come to the house and simply be himself. For her part, the woman would allow him to come and she never questioned his motives.

It was during one of these usual weekly meeting that the boy saw something strange in her eyes. It was there and gone in an instant; a phantom that wasn't supposed to escape that had somehow managed to penetrate her defenses. It took the boy a few minutes of pondering to decipher it.

It was fear.

Every time the woman looked at him, her eyes were haunted by the past.

He wanted desperately to ask her what it was that haunted her, but he knew that she would never answer. Her defenses had been up for so long that one little boy wouldn't change that.

So he continued to love her from afar and worked in any way he could to rid her of the specter of her past.

Then his life came crashing down.

It was not long after his twentieth birthday when the letter came; the letter that would destroy so much.

He knew that a war had been going on for several years, but it had been an unimportant force in his life. He had never been forced to look at the reality of war just outside of his door.

That letter changed everything.

He was drafted.

He took the letter first to the woman that he loved. He watched as her haunted eyes scanned the words on the page. He felt like she read the letter for an eternity.

When her eyes rose to meet his, she was crying.

"You don't have the right to be a child any longer."

It was the first time he saw her cry; the first time in five years she lowered all her defenses.

That was when he knew he wanted to marry her.

Impulsively, he took her in his arms and held her tight. Even though he could feel a few of her stray tears soak into his shirt, her body wasn't shaking with each silent sob. To his surprise, she didn't push him away but instead allowed him to hold her in his arms.

"Please…"

The word bubbled up from some place he couldn't quite identify, but somehow, as he held her in his arms, it felt right. He waited in silence as the woman's tears seemed to subside and she gave an almost imperceptible nod of her head.

"I love you."

She said the words so quietly that he wasn't even sure he heard her right. But the next moment, she lifted her head from his chest and touched her lips softly to his. The contact lasted for no more than a second but the soft feeling of her lips on his confirmed what he had known for the past five years.

He loved her; he would always love her. He would do anything to protect her even if that meant leaving her.

They were married the next week. There was no ceremony; no pomp and circumstance. The two of them signed a piece of paper and were wed. The boy got to honestly kiss her lips for the first time.

He was sent off to training the next day.

The time that he spent in training was measured only by the letters exchanged between the two of them. It was through these letters that he learned about what had haunted her eyes for so many years.

When he received the letter containing the truth of her fear, he couldn't help but read everything over and over again; she was finally telling him everything; no secrets, no lies, no carefully packed away specters. It was all there for him to see. It only made him love her more.

He wanted nothing more than to run home to her and waylay all her fears, but all he could do was offer words to comfort her. He sincerely hopped it was enough.

As he waited for her reply, he wrote another letter. This one he had no intention of sending. Instead, he nestled the letter in a pocket next to his heart.

He hoped that he would never have to send the letter to her. If she received it, it would mean he wasn't coming home; it would mean he would never see that elusive smile again.

With his final words to her nestled eternally next to his soul, the letters and the days of training went by in a flurry of gunshots and pages. Before he realized it, the boy was standing on a battlefield with a bulky and awkward gun in his hands.

He could feel the battle raging all around him as he aimed and lowered the gun as he had been trained. The shots rang out, the bodies fell, the square in his pocket burned into his chest. His fingers grew numb and his finger pulled the trigger, his eyesight became hazy as the bodies continued to cascade down unendingly. But no matter how much time passed or how numb he became to the world, he felt each letter on the page burn into him.

The battle ends, but the numbness and burning remains.

He waits for a letter from her, something to rid him of the numbness.

Nothing comes.

The next battle starts.

He can't do it; he knows he can't kill any more. As he holds the worthless metal in his hand, he leaves the chamber empty. It doesn't matter if there's a bullet there. He knows he won't be able to use it.

Then he sees the boy charging at him. His hair is plastered to his face and he moves with an almost demonic rage.

BANG!

So many gunshots ring out on the battlefield, but he hears only one clearly. Then he feels the ripping pain in his chest. He wants to continue to stand, but the pain drags him to the ground.

A shot right to the heart; the soldier has done an excellent job killing his target.

Vaguely, he feels himself being rolled over as he looks up at his would-be assistant. He sees the face of the soldier, but instead of the all-consuming rage that he been the only emotion on his face previously, now his eyes flicker softly with a wide range of emotions.

Through the haze of his inevitable end, the baby-faced soldier reaches for the letter. He has rehearsed this so many times. The letter has to get to her.

He takes the paper into his hand for the last time. He can't even feel the burning sensation of the paper. He no longer understands why it's important for this letter to be taken from him, but he knows, he knows he needs the letter delivered.

"Please…"

His lips labor to form the words as the world grows increasingly hazy around him. He looks up at the man holding him who is both soldier and frightened child. He watches as the man's head nods in agreement. The baby-faced soldier feels the corners of his lips lift in what he knows must be a horrible mockery of a smile.

_"I love her…whatever she has decided…let her know that…I love her…and our son…"_

He wasn't able to say those words. He so desperately wants his lips to work, but everything around him is fading to black. He can't see any more. He can't even imagine her.

As the blackness of death callously sweeps away anything that identifies him as human, the last thing he remembers is beautiful blue eyes.

Then even that memory is swept away.

The baby-faced soldier that loved her is gone.

In his place is a letter in the hands of an enemy.

A final and desperate link.


	3. The Woman

**A/N: **Long time no see, huh guys? Sorry about that. This chapter was probably the one that changed around the most, but I think it changed for the better.

Also, a special shout-out has to go to Yiseunggi (whose name I always feel like I'm spelling wrong) who mention how she would like to see this updated...which encouraged me to do just that. I suppose good things come to those who ask. :)

All that aside I really hope you guys enjoy and stay tuned for the next and final chapter!

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><p>She never wanted the child.<p>

She had loved him – there was no doubt of that – but the child wasn't in her plan; in their plan. Of course he disagreed with her; disagreeing with her was what he was best at. He would spend hours holding her in his arms, whispering to her softly, and absentmindedly rubbing at her stomach.

"We're going to be parents."

Over and over and over again he would whisper that phrase to her, his voice low and awestruck.

Every time she heard it she wanted to scream.

Or run away.

Or cry.

Or puke.

She just wasn't ready! She wasn't good enough! She couldn't be a mother! She was only eighteen years old; she could barely take care of herself let alone another life growing inside her. She wanted desperately to tell him all that, to make him understand, but every time she brought up the child, his eyes would soften and he would smile to himself.

She could never go through with it; she loved his smile far too much. To be the one to tell him that she didn't want to, that she _couldn't,_ take care of the child – she couldn't bring herself to do it.

So she grew up. She forced herself to grow up.

Time she would have spent with friends or studying for her college courses were instead spent reading books on parenting and pregnancy. She wanted to be strong; she wanted to be strong for him.

But with every word she read, she felt as if she was sinking deeper and deeper. Concepts such as "parenthood", "family time", "motherhood", and "parental responsibility" terrified her.

How was a child like herself expected to take care of another child?

The question haunted her with every new fact, every tidbit of advice, she read and absorbed in her childish mind.

She wasn't growing up nearly fast enough; the child was growing far faster than she ever could. The tiny life – the tiny parasite – that lived inside her was overtaking her at a frightening rate.

She wanted to run away, but the baby was a part of her. She had nowhere to run to.

There was only one solution she could think to do. No, it wasn't that she could only _think_ of one solution; there _was_ onlyone solution.

One of them had to die.

She could never kill the child. His smile when he spoke of the unborn life; if she got rid of the child, that smile would be gone forever. She would no longer be lover or fiancé. She would be a murderer in his eyes – the murderer of his child.

His son.

That left one option. She would have to be the one to die.

It began slowly at first. Situations where she would normally have laughed were suddenly silent. Events that would have made her smile were either looked at indifferently or ignored altogether. Slowly, ever so slowly, she was losing what defined her as an individual. Soon, she would be what she knew he wanted. She would be a warm body to serve as the container for his child.

That was when the arguing began.

He accused her of changing; she was becoming someone else. She wanted to laugh in his face. Of course she was someone else. One of them had to die and she would never forgive herself if killing the child also killed his smile.

So she was the one who had to go. Why couldn't he understand? She had no choice, just like a stone thrown into the air has to answer the call of gravity.

No, that was wrong. She could have talked to him. The two of them could have worked it out together.

Together? He wasn't the one with a child inside him; living off him! She had no love for the child, she only loved the fact that it made him smile. If she had stayed herself, the child would have had to die!

"Why can't you understand?"

The next morning, there was a note on the table. His handwriting was more neat than normal – she instantly recognized it as the handwriting he used for business transactions.

The handwriting he used when talking to strangers.

Her mother would always tell her that letters let you know what someone truly thought of you. If that were true, she knew exactly what he thought of her: they no longer knew one another. She had killed the woman he fell in love with and he no longer wanted to spend time with the stranger that had taken her place.

Even without reading the words on the page, she knew he was gone and he would never be coming back.

When she finished reading, she set the note down without a sound and walked away. The woman that had loved him would have cried. That woman was dead.

She went about her days like normal. She could feel her identity crumbling as the child's grew. Most of the time she was able to convince herself that the young woman she had been was dead, but some nights as she lay in bed – the bed that still smelled faintly like the shampoo he always used – she felt herself crying.

His ghost lingered everywhere about her; a specter that haunted her everywhere.

Her heartache encouraged her to keep the child. He had spoken so fondly, with such amazement, about the tiny life growing inside her. Did it have the power to resurrect both the girl and relationship that had been lost?

She didn't think so, but as the days stretched on and the child grew, she couldn't help but hope. When she hoped, she couldn't help but give a self-deprecating laugh; she had killed herself, dead people weren't allowed to have hopes.

But she did hope, no matter how many times she laughed at herself.

She hoped and she was wrong.

When the child was born (a healthy baby boy they proudly informed her), he wasn't there. When they handed the child to her for the first time, he wasn't there. When she began to cry, her tears falling on the soft skin of the newborn, he wasn't there.

He wasn't there.

But he was. Every time she looked at the child; every time she held it in her arms; every time she fed it; every interaction it was as if he was standing there speaking in that awestruck voice he used whenever her spoke of the child – their child.

"We're going to be parents"

He had left.

"We're going to be parents."

_No, you're going to leave and I'm going to be left with a child that does nothing but remind me of you._

"We're going to be parents."

She wept the first night she took the child home with her. She thought she had killed off the eighteen year old who loved him, but as she looked down at that child, it all came rushing back down upon her. She was scared and lost as she knelt at the cradle side and wept bitterly.

For two years she managed to raise the child, but it became more and more difficult to look at it. It looked so much like the man she had once loved. She could tell that her long dead feelings were beginning to surface once more.

His ghost was haunting her. There was no escape.

If she were resurrected, what would happen to the child? If the woman who never wanted the child, the woman who was terrified of the child, returned, what would happen then?

She didn't want to find out. She had to get away. She had to get away to make it safe for both of them.

At least that's what she told herself.

Lying made it easier to accept the truth.

She was abandoning the child because it hurt to look at him.

Every action reminded her of a man she had once loved.

On the child's third birthday she showed up on her parent's doorstep with a letter in hand; a letter lets you know what someone truly thinks of you. She had written down everything – now she only had to wait and see if her mother accepted.

Once she finished reading the letter, her mother raised her head, met her eyes and then gave the slightest nod before taking the child from her and gently closing the door. She stared at that closed door for several minutes before she gained the energy to take the first step away.

She had killed herself to give birth to the child and now she had given up the child; there was nothing left for her. As her singular set of footsteps echo hollowly, one question kept ringing over and over in her head:

What was going to happen to her now?

The answer was a young boy with a baby face.

She had just moved to a new house (far away from her parents' house) when he suddenly showed up on her doorstep. It was almost like looking at a mirror into the past. She could tell instantly that he was doing exactly what she had been doing – he was killing himself in order to let others in his life live.

The realization made her want to scream.

Or run away.

Or cry.

Or puke.

Instead, she simply said the first thing that came to mind; anything to prevent him from walking down the same path as her.

"Stop pretending to be older than you are. Enjoy the age you are. You have the right to be a child for a little longer; you should take advantage of it."

She watched as he instantly threw up every defense at his disposal and he began to laugh bitterly.

A self-deprecating laugh.

He was asking her why she was giving this advice to someone that was already dead.

But she knew that to be wrong.

He had just started down the path. There was still time for him to turn back.

So she repeated what she had just said.

This time, he began to cry and she felt relief flood her system. Maybe it was only a small form of atonement; maybe she was doing it simply to make herself feel better; but she felt honestly glad for the first time in years.

To her surprise, the boy came back the next day. He told her that he was there to keep her company because she was new to the community and didn't know anyone. She wanted to laugh – he was choosing to spend his free time with a dead woman? – but instead she politely accepted his invitation and the two of them entered the house together.

The days when he would visit fell into a routine and she slowly grew to realize that he had fallen in love with her. She wanted to scold him; she wanted to tell him that she was long dead and no good would come from associating with her, but every time she looked at him she couldn't bring herself to do it.

He reminded her too much of him. When she looked into his eyes, she saw the ghost of her previous love.

Instead of telling him to go away like she should have, she allowed him to keep visiting. When she thought of the past, inevitably her mind settled onto the child; he was the one part of her past that was still available to her if she chose to reach out to it. She never did.

That past belonged to a foolish girl who believed that love could overcome anything: a foolish girl who had killed herself in order to let others around her live.

Instead of reaching for her life in the past, she chose to be dead in the present.

At least, that was what she succeeded to do for five years.

Then one day he came at his usual time, only this time he held a letter.

She wanted to laugh, but instead it came out as tears. When she read that letter she realized that she wasn't nearly as dead as she had liked herself to believe. The baby faced boy's presence had slowly brought the dead, hollow places back to life. She was no longer a lost eighteen year old, but she was also no longer a walking corpse.

The second thing she realized was that she was in love with him.

She wanted to tell him everything – about her past, about the child, about how much he meant to her – but the words always stopped before they actually left her mouth. Before she had time to work out the problem, he had been torn away from her by the power of war.

She wrote to him constantly. Every message she sent him was light and happy. Her intention was to give him the strength to make it back to her safely.

However, one day she woke up and realized that it was the child's birthday.

That was the day she sent the letter explaining everything.

"If I bring him home, will you accept him and love him as your own? Do you…think that we can take care of him together? Do you think that you can accept me – a woman who selfishly abandons her own child and then just as selfishly wants him back?"

His response came quickly and as she held that letter in her hands, her heart pounded in her ears. His handwriting was small and scribbled; it was almost as if he was trying to cram all his words, all his emotions, onto that one page.

It was so different from his…

She let the thought trail off into oblivion. It didn't matter anymore what his letter had said or what handwriting he had used; the only handwriting she wanted to remember was the handwriting of her husband.

It took her two weeks of making herself sick with worry before she worked up the nerve to drive to her parents' house. As she stood at that door, it took a lifetime to raise her shaking hand and knock twice upon the door.

Compared to the incredible amount of time it took her to knock, the door opened surprisingly quick. When she saw who was standing there, she felt her breath hitch in her throat. It just wasn't fair. She had worked so hard to forget him – to move on – and now the child had those same startling eyes.

Time froze as the two of them stood staring at one another. The two of them examined each other's faces warily, like two opponents studying their enemy before battle. When she looked into his eyes, she couldn't help but feel a twinge of pain rip through her body.

But just as quickly, she saw the face of her husband, remembered the words he had written to her, and she knew it was going to be alright. As she knelt down so she was on eye level with the child, she felt the corners of her mouth tweaking into a sad grin.

"Hey, it's mom. You probably don't remember me and I'm sorry I took so long. I know I don't deserve it, but can you ever forgive me?"

The child's eyes went wide as he realized who he was talking to. He stared at her a few minutes before he turned away and scampered off into the house. To her surprise, when he turned around a corner and disappeared, she felt her entire chest constrict as the hot burning of tears pricked the back of her eyes.

_So that's it then...Of course it makes sense; I've abandoned him for so long. I…I…there's nothing I can do to make this right…just like his father, he's moved on without me._

As the thought crossed her mind, she felt all the strength rush from her legs and she collapsed to the porch in a wreck of sobs. She knew it was selfish; after all, when the child had been growing inside her, she had never wanted it. But despite her best efforts to rationalize the situation, the tears would not be stopped.

There was a gentle tugging on her sleeve.

She looked up to find him staring at her. The child – _her _child – had come back.

In his hands, he held a handful of folded up pieces of paper. As he pushed a specific one forward and she took it into her hands, she realized that it was a letter. She stared at it a moment before, with shaking hands, unfolded the paper and read its context.

A letter lets you know what someone truly thinks of you.

"Dear Mama, grandma says that you're somewhere far away and you won't be coming back for a while. But if letters can reach Santa all the way at the North Pole, I'm sure this can reach you wherever you are. I'm gonna write you a letter every day so you're not sad and you don't miss me too much. I love you mama, so please hurry and come see me soon! P.S. Grandma baked me cookies today; do you think when I see you again you could bake me some cookies too?"

It was as if a dam was released. All the pent up anger, all the pent up tears, all the pent of sadness, was released as she wept onto the letter, smudging the words. When she looked up at the child once more, he was digging through his pile of letters looking for another one to give her.

She didn't give him the chance as she flung her arms around him and pulled him into a tight hug that caused the letters to scatter onto the front porch.

"Thank you…thank you…thank you…I…I love you…"

The two of them sat together as they embraced to erase away all the years that had separated them. She knew that she would no longer be able to reclaim the young woman who had died all those years ago, but that didn't seem to matter.

Surrounded by the letters that he had written to her, she knew she could move forward and create a new identity.


	4. The Child

**A/N: **Here's the last chapter guys! I'm kind of 'meh' about this whole story considering it was originally going to be a one-shot, but I guess it turned out alright in the end.

I have to give special thank-yous to yiseunggi and irish d' salmon luver. Both of you not only stuck with me and reviewed every chapter for this entire story, you guys also have reviewed several of my other stories. It means so much to me that you guys enjoyed one of my stories enough to give another one a chance. You two are both sweethearts and I can't thank you enough!

Now then, on with the story.

* * *

><p>She was crying again.<p>

It wasn't an unfamiliar sound – she did it almost every night – but that didn't stop him from hating it. He hated the sound of her tears. He hated how she would cry by herself. He hated how she would pretend to smile whenever he came to comfort her.

But more than anything, he hated _him_.

He hated the one who had sent the letter.

She insisted on telling him that the one who had sent the letter was his father. He didn't believe her. In all the stories his grandma had read to him, a dad was the person who was supposed to play catch with you or ride bikes to the park with you or sneak you extra dessert when mama says you can't have any more.

Most importantly, a dad was someone who came home every night.

He could understand mama having to leave him. Grandma had explained to him that although mama was gone, she would come back for him and they would be able to spend every day together; she had told him that sometimes mommies just had to leave for a little bit.

However, dads were different. They were supposed to walk through the door every night after work and pull you into a hug. He knew; he had read all the stories, all the fairytales.

They were supposed to be there for you when no one else was.

Mama had told him the other day that the person who had written the letter would never be coming home.

That meant he couldn't possibly be his father.

No, he didn't have a father. He would make do with having only a mama; after all, it wasn't long ago that he had no mama at all. He would do everything in his power to make sure that she was happy, with or without a dad there to help him.

However, he couldn't do anything as he sat in the hallway and listened to her cry.

He wanted to run in there – he wanted desperately to comfort her, but she would just assume that he was the one who needed help. If he attempted to comfort her, it would only cause her more worries.

Instead, he sat outside her room, tracing circles in the carpet and listening to her cry herself to sleep behind the closed door. He kept watch every night, just to ensure that the tears stopped for just a little bit while her body recovered in sleep.

As he listened to her once more, it felt like each sob was a physical blow. However, she wasn't the one hitting him. No, it was the man who wasn't there; the soldier who had written the letter that made her cry; the man who would never be his father.

Another quiet sob echoed through the hallway, making his gut lurch in protest as he shut his eyes tight and put his hands over his ears. He just wanted her to stop. He just wanted her to smile and be his mama, not the woman who cried herself to sleep every night. Although he had never gone to church once in his life, he prayed to the big, nebulous idea of "god" that he had heard people talk about before.

He just wanted to move forward; he wanted to make happy memories.

With his eyes still shut, he brought about the most recent happy memory he could recall. The other day had been one of her good days. Without him even mentioning it, she walked into his room smiling, asking if he wanted to bake cookies.

She had remembered that very first letter he has written to her.

With a huge smile on his face, he instantly agreed.

It was the happiest he had been in a long time and she seemed just as happy as he was. She let him lick the beaters and, with the sweet smell of baking cookies wafting through the house, the two of them ended up in a bubble fight while doing the dishes.

With bubbles and his childish laughter filling the air, he heard something ring through the air for the first time in his life.

Maybe she didn't intend to, but she laughed.

It was unexpected and at first he wasn't quite sure that he had heard correctly. But she did it again and that was when he knew without a doubt. She was laughing, completely unrestricted and almost childish.

The moment was so normal, so mundane.

The moment was perfect.

Laughter washed away all those years she had abandoned him; it washed away the fact that he had no father; it washed away the instable predicament of their current life.

Then the moment abruptly ended.

The radio that had been softly playing in the background announced the name of some song and artist he had never heard of. A moment later, a piano piece began to play throughout the room. He spared half a second to register the change in song before he scooped up a handful of bubbles and prepared to continue the war that had been briefly paused by her laughter.

However, she was no longer looking at him.

She was no longer looking at anything.

In her hands there were still traces of the bubbles she had been throwing the moment before, but she made no move to collect more bubbles and continue their fight. Instead, her eyes glazed over and she stared at an indeterminate spot on the wall. Worry suddenly flaring in him, he tugged gently on her sleeve.

"Mama? Mama?"

The words had no effect as she continued to stare straight ahead, oblivious to the world. He tugged harder, but to no avail; wherever she was, it was some faraway place where he could never hope to reach her.

Trying to figure out what had brought about this sudden change, he tuned into the song playing over the radio and inexplicably felt his heart constrict in his chest. He had never heard the song, but somehow he instantly recognized it, as if he had heard it every day of his life.

It was a song about people that never came back; a song about those left behind; a song about trying to pick up the pieces and failing to recover; a song about life after the letters stopped.

A song about abandonment.

A song about his mama.

The realization was shattered by the sound of chocked sobs and knees slamming down onto the cheap, linoleum tiles of the kitchen. He watched her as she buried her face in her hands, heedless of the bubbles that smattered her hands. For a moment, all he could do was stare and listen.

The tears seemed to amplify and complete the song in some inexplicable way. Without the tears, it was a heart wrenching song; with the tears, it became the ignored lament of one woman who had dared to try and lead a happy life.

Reality rushing back in, he ran to her side, the memory of her laughter already evaporating from his mind. She smothered him in her arms as he listened to the rattle of her chest. Held so tightly and desperately in her embrace, he couldn't help but wonder what she was crying for.

The soldier who had died? The future she had lost? The world that had taken everything from her?

He had no answers. As she held him in his arms and continued to cry for a reason he couldn't begin to understand, he only knew one thing for certain one.

He hated the song.

The two of them embraced until the screech of the kitchen timer announced that their batch of cookies was done. Hastily detangling herself, she gave a shaky smile and went to retrieve the cookies. Before she made her way to the oven, he watched her deliberately stop at the radio and turn it off with a definite click. She spent the rest of the day trying to erase the moment of weakness she had allowed to slip through the cracks.

But not matter how many smiles she gave, she never laughed again. Without the laughter, she wasn't able to erase the hate that bubbled up inside him.

As he sat in the hallway, keeping guard over his mother once more, he began to count all the things he hated. By the time he got to twenty, he stopped.

When had he started hating so many things?

The answer came to him instantly; he had started hating so many things when _his_ letter came.

Before that day, he had loved the idea of letters. They were a way to reach out to people you couldn't see – a way to obtain the unobtainable, like a magic spell. Letters had been his passageway to a mother that wasn't there.

Every day he would sit down with his pencils, pens, crayons - anything that he could write with, and he would write to her. Sometimes he would include pictures, sometimes grandma would have to help him with his spelling, but it was always his own words and his own feelings. He was the magician casting his magic spell that would allow him to find mama.

Then the letter came and everything came crashing down.

Now when he thought of letters, all he could think about was the sound of mama crying.

There was no way that man could be his father; a father didn't make his son hate something he had once loved.

Yes, it was all _his _fault.

It was all the fault of his letter.

He stopped tracing circles in the rug as a simple fact dawned on him. It had been so simple, so obvious, that he was surprised he hadn't thought of it before.

All he had to do was get rid of the letter.

If the letter was gone, all the bad memories would evaporate.

If the letter was gone, she would have nothing to cry about.

If the letter was gone, he wouldn't be forced to live with the ghost of the man who pretended to be his father.

All he had to do was get rid of the letter.

He began to count the seconds as they raced into minutes. With each minute that passed, the crying behind his mother's door got quieter and quieter. He counted out a full three hundred seconds before he stood from his place on the floor and stood in front of her door.

It wasn't locked – she always left it open in case he needed her in the middle of the night. He took the cold, brass knob into his hands carefully and slowly placed his weight on it, allowing it to turn slowly in his grip. Every sound the door made sent his heart rate skyrocketing, but he knew that she had tired herself out with crying and wouldn't be waking up till the morning.

To him, it felt like an agonizingly long time before the door creaked open and he peered into her sparsely furnished bedroom. Moving swiftly now, he headed towards where his mother lay in the bed sleeping. He knew exactly where the letter would be; she kept it in the same place every night.

On the empty half of the bed where he would have slept.

Tiptoeing away from his mother, he headed to where he knew the letter would be. It lay innocently on the pillow, its corners bent and blunted from her holding it so many times. Even from where he was standing, he could see the place where the paper crinkled up, stained with her tears.

With hatred driving his every action, he snatched up the letter and ran out of the room, no longer heading how quiet he was being. He didn't stop running until he reached the salvation of his room.

Slamming the door shut behind him and hastily locking the door, he rushed to his bed and threw the letter down as quickly as if it was a live coal. As he looked at the letter lying innocently on his bed, he couldn't help but feel a sudden wave of guilt wash over him.

The guilt quickly fled as he remembered how much the letter made his mother cry.

Suddenly filled with courage, he picked up the letter and ripped it in half. The sound of paper ripping did nothing to calm his anger, only making the hatred run like blood through his veins.

He took the paper in his hands and ripped again.

And again.

And again.

He lost track of the amount of times he tore the paper apart but when he stopped, the paper lay in tiny shreds on his bed. Now that he had done the deed, he wasn't sure what he had expected to change, but his hatred had not abated. In fact it only seemed to glow strong in his chest.

"Why can't you just leave me alone! You're not my daddy!"

As he screamed, he pounded his fists into the bed, sending the scraps of letters fluttering across the room. When he regained his breath, he looked up at the mess he had made and felt his eyes go wide in surprise. One of the pieces of paper had landed right next to his foot, close enough that he could read it.

Printed prominently on the front of the sheet of paper were two words.

"Our son".

Not 'your son' or 'the child'; our son.

For the longest times, all he could do was stare. It felt like he was staring at a letter from someone else. There was no way this was the letter that made his mother cry.

…Was it?

Curiosity suddenly killing off his hatred, he began to gather the pieces of paper like tiny flecks of gold. Once he managed to find them all, he hurriedly went to his bed and made it his workshop, painstakingly placing the letter back together. It was a long process and he was pretty sure he nodded off a couple times, but he finished reassembling the letter just as light was beginning to leak through his closed blinds.

He leaned down next to the letter and began to read the man's tight, closely packed handwriting. The first part was all about him saying farewell to mama; he was letting her know that he would always love her, but he wanted her to move on with her life. He mentioned something about how mama had died in the past, but that made no sense to him, so he skipped past that part.

"To our son…"

He felt his heart skip a beat as he realized this part of the letter was addressed to him.

"To our son…sorry, it's kind of odd for me to think that I have a son. Not that it's bad; in fact, it's a wonderful thing and I just want you to know that I'm proud of you. You may not understand this until you're older, but I've been a terrible father and husband; I only told your mom I love her a few days before I had to go off to war; see what I mean by terrible? I guess I just want you to know that if you're reading this letter, it means that I never got to see you, never got to hold you, never got to watch you grow up. While all this is true, I want you to know one thing; I love you. If you forget everything else about me, please remember that one thing."

He was shaking as he pulled back from the letter. His entire body felt numb as thousands of emotions ran through his system. He sat still for about five second before his hands flew to his nightstand drawer and he pulled out a crayon and paper.

Previously the drawer had held the paper he would use to write to his mother every day.

Today it would be used for a very different purpose.

His crayon began to scratch out angry, large, childish letters as he wrote to the man that would never be his father.

"You are not my daddy. I am not your child. Mama told me you would never be coming home and you said that in your letter so you are not my daddy. Daddys always come home. They always come home to make sure that their wife is not sad and crying. I'm gonna write you a letter every day until you come back. Mama said there is no way we can reach you but if letters can reach Santa, they can reach you. You said you love mommy but you're not coming home. If you love her come home. If you love me come home. You will not be my daddy until you come home."

Huge drops of water fell onto the paper, blurring the young boy's eyesight. The water surprised him, causing him to raise his eyes to the ceiling, looking for a hole in the roof. Suddenly, he realized he was crying.

The tears wouldn't stop.

He worked himself into the fetal position as he cried for the first time since mama had picked him up from grandma's house. He wasn't sure what he was crying for, but he couldn't stop his small frame from racking with chocking sobs.

Before long, he fell asleep, his cheeks still wet with tears.

When he woke up in the morning, both his letter and the letter the man had written had been taken away. He made his way hesitantly down to the kitchen, but he found his mama standing in the kitchen quietly cooking eggs. When she turned around to look at him, she had a soft smile on her lips.

"Good morning. Would you like some breakfast?"

For a moment, all he could do was stare dumbly. He had destroyed the letter; she should have been angry with him. Instead, she was smiling gently at him as she waited for his response. He found himself giving a slow nod of his head. She responded with a slight lengthening of her smile as she turned once more to tend to the eggs.

He watched her for a few seconds more before he rushed upstairs and grabbed a piece of paper and crayon from his nightstand. When he returned downstairs once more, he sat down at the table and began to write.

"Who are you writing to?"

He looked up to see his mama looking down gently at him as she placed his breakfast on the table.

It was as if a magical spell had been cast; a magical spell had been cast by the letter.

The moment was so normal, so mundane.

The moment was perfect.

He looked up at her and gave a wide grin.

"I'm writing to daddy. I know you said he's not coming home, but letters can reach Santa and letters reached you, so I'm sure they can reach him, right?"

Surprise registered in her eyes before it melted away to be replaced with warmth.

"That's right. I'm sure daddy will love to receive all these letters from you."

So he wrote to him every day.

The letters served as a connection between a father and son that had never met but loved each other all the same.


End file.
